This blog is written by a journalist based in Mumbai who writes about cities, the environment, developmental issues, the media, women and many other subjects.The title 'ulti khopdi' is a Hindi phrase referring to someone who likes to look at things from the other side.

Is
Maneka Gandhi just shooting her mouth off or is a policy change imminent?

According
to reports by journalists who heard her speak at a conference in Jaipur on
Monday, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development seems convinced that
the way to deal with sex-selective abortions, which has led to a precipitous
decline in the sex ratio, is to make sex-determination tests on pregnant women
mandatory.

Her
logic is hard to fathom. The minister has suggested, in all seriousness, that
doctors should reveal the sex of the foetus to pregnant women whether they want
to know it or not. She believes that by doing this, women will then be afraid
to abort female foetuses as its sex will be part of public record.

“It
is really not feasible to go around trying to catch every ultrasound technician
for revealing the foetal gender to parents in violation of the PCPNDT Act,” Gandhi
was quoted as saying. “Rather, why not reverse the strategy? The moment a woman
gets pregnant, we should find out the gender of the child, tell the mother
about it, and immediately register it in public records. Then we can track
which pregnancies are carried to full term.”

She
continued: “Since the gender is already known, and given the law, families
would be compelled to go through with the pregnancy especially when the foetus
is female.”

If it ain’t broke…

In
other words, Gandhi wants to turn the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal
Diagnostic Techniques Act on its head. The law prohibits the revelation
of the sex of a
foetus as it could lead to sex-selective abortions and it penalises
doctors and ultrasound
technicians who reveal the sex of the unborn child. The new proposal
seems to
suggest that the Union minister wants to shift this burden to the
shoulders of pregnant
women who will be considered criminals if they decide to abort a female
foetus.

The proposal
might never get through but it is worth considering the consequences if it did.

The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act was the result of campaigns followed
by consultations with groups that linked the use of sex-selection and sex-detection
technologies to the decline in the sex ratio in India. They argued that the
misuse of these technologies aided society’s preference for sons. The fact that
the sex ratio had declined even in wealthy districts pointed to the widespread
use of these technologies to limit the births of girls.

Paperwork pain

Doctors
and ultrasound technicians were held responsible for revealing the sex of the
foetus because this was a straightforward way to check rampant sex selection
and the sex-selective abortions that followed.

Of
course, this meant that all sonography machines had to be registered and
doctors had to go through additional paperwork when dealing with pregnant
women. However, this was considered a small price to pay given the enormity of
the problem.

The
law also kept in mind that women who were compelled to have multiple abortions
before they produced a male child had no choice. They did this under
circumstances where they were blamed if they produced only female children.

The medical lobby

Gandhi
was quick to clarify that her remarks were just loud thinking and not the
precursor to policy change. Yet, her proposal did not emerge out of thin air.
It is in response to a concerted campaign by the medical community to change
the Pre-Natal Conception and Diagnostic Technologies Act.

Doctors
have complained not just about the paperwork but that they were being charged even
for minor “clerical errors”. This
argument has held sway in many cases and accounts for the low level of
conviction in cases that fall under the law forbidding sex determination. Doctors
have also complained about corruption by officials who demand bribes when they
come to inspect papers.

In
Maharashtra, doctors have been particularly vociferous in their demands for a
change in the law. Not surprisingly, the first response to Gandhi’s statement came
from the president of the Maharashtra branch of the Indian Medical Association,
Dr Jayant Lele, who said, “The sex ratio has not dramatically improved after
this law came into force. If expecting couples are tracked after sex
determination shows it is a female foetus, they will be more fearful of
breaking the law.”

In
short, the medical community would like to be absolved of all responsibility and
Gandhi’s proposal is precisely what it wants.

Fix basics first

Apart
from being highly impractical, Gandhi’s proposal are unacceptably intrusive. In
a country with over a billion people with millions being added every year, how
will the government monitor every single birth to make sure that sex selective
abortions are not taking place? Who will do it?

If even
the basic job of ensuring that all pregnant women receive antenatal care so
that they survive the pregnancy and deliver healthy babies is not being done how
will health establishments across the country take on this additional task? And
should they?
The proposal
is even more perplexing when Gandhi suggests that the monitoring of every
pregnant woman in the country will encourage institutional deliveries. The leap
of logic she uses to arrive at this conclusion is unfathomable.

In a
country where the word “inadequate” would be a gross understatement when it
comes to the ratio of hospital beds to people, does the minister for Women and
Child Development really think that we are ready to abolish home deliveries and
compel all pregnant women to go to hospital for their deliveries?

Millions
of babies are born at home, delivered by trained village dais, and
survive. Yet, Gandhi believes “home
deliveries pose a threat to the newborn as there might be an attempt on its
life” and recommends that they be abolished.

If
we have to put up with such ill-informed statements from a person tasked with
ensuring the survival of women and children in India, perhaps the post of minister
for Women and Child Development should be abolished.

1 comment:

The minister’s assertion is that the existing law has failed and needs to be amended. In a communal country like ours where people love to play with religion even if they do not adhere to it, the proposal of minister will charge the atmosphere differently and flare up with indifferently. Some sections believe that notwithstanding gender, sex is to be known only at the god given time which is the time of delivery. Detection of sex in advance by enforcement of law will be to their chagrin and opposition. The minister ought to have given a thought before airing her views.

My profile

Journalist, columnist, writer based in Mumbai. Author of "Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's largest slum" (Penguin, 2000). Worked with The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express and Himmat Weekly.
Other books include "Whose News? The Media and Women's Issues" edited with Ammu Joseph (published by Sage 1994/2006), "Terror Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out" edited with Ammu Joesph (published by Kali for Women, 2003) and "Missing: Half the Story, Journalism as if Gender Matters" (published by Zubaan, 2010).
Regular columns in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine and on The Hoot (www.thehoot.org).